Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Mark 15:21-41, The cross
Jesus is crucified as king of the Jews between two bandits, mocked by passers-by, and dies with a loud cry. The temple curtain tears, and women watch from a distance.
Mark 15:21-41, in every translation this tool compares.
A man from Cyrene is made to carry the cross, and Jesus is crucified under a notice naming his crime as being king of the Jews. Onlookers jeer, and in the afternoon he cries out with the opening of Psalm 22 and dies. A Roman centurion watching him die calls him God's Son, while women who had come with him from Galilee watch from a distance.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/honor-and-shame\/","n":"Honor before a crowd","s":"Public standing was the currency of the ancient Mediterranean. People competed for honor and dreaded being shamed in front of others.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/elijah-expected\/","n":"Elijah expected","s":"Malachi promised Elijah would come back before the great day of the Lord. By Jesus' time many were waiting for him, and the Gospels keep raising his name.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/women-who-followed\/","n":"Women who followed","s":"Women traveled with Jesus, paid for his movement, and stayed at the cross and the tomb when the men had gone.","r":""}
Keener notes that Psalm 22 begins in abandonment and ends in God's vindication, and that Mark gives the cry in Aramaic, Eloi, where the psalm has Hebrew Eli. Gentiles called many figures, heroes and the emperor among them, sons of gods; Garland narrows this, since son of god was Augustus's title as the adopted son of the deified Caesar, "not a title applied to emperors in general"; Keener reads the centurion as seeing in Jesus the son of Israel's one God. Keener notes that the charge on the cross, King of the Jews, is the climax of Mark's preaching of the kingdom, and Wright notes that the bystanders think Jesus is still waiting for Elijah, when Elijah has already come. An ossuary inscribed Alexander son of Simon has been found in Jerusalem, and Golgotha was probably an abandoned quarry outside the Gennath Gate (Garland). The only crucified man's bones yet found are Jehohanan's, from Giv'at ha-Mivtar, crucified between AD 7 and 66 (Garland). The Mishnah makes the temple veil a handbreadth thick (Garland).
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Mark 15:23, 15:24, 15:26, 15:29, 15:34, 15:35, 15:38, 15:39 and 15:41, and note on Matthew 27:51
- N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, comments on Mark 15:16-32 and Mark 15:33-39
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Mark 15:21, 15:38 and 15:39
- Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, ch. 14, Jesus and Women: An Introduction
- David E. Garland, Mark, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Mark 15:21, 15:22, 15:24, 15:38 and 15:39
